Steganographic and digital watermarking technologies are well known. For example see U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,292 and the extensive references cited therein. Also see co-pending patent applications Ser. No. 08/327,426 which was filed Oct. 21, 1994 and co-pending application Ser. No. 08/436,134 which was filed May 8, 1995 (now U.S. Pat. No. 5,748,763).
The technology for inserting digital watermarks in images and the technology for reading or detecting digital watermarks in images is well developed, well known and described in detail in public literature. Furthermore, there are commercially available products which include programs or mechanisms for inserting digital watermarks into images. For example the commercially available and widely used products “Adobe Photoshop” which is marketed by Adobe Corporation of San Jose, Calif. and “Corel Draw” program which is marked by Corel Corporation of Ontario Canada, include a facility for inserting digital watermarks into images.
The technology for making high quality copies of documents is widely available. The technical quality of scanners and color printers has been increasing rapidly. Today for a relatively low cost one can purchase a high quality scanner and a high quality color printer. Thus, it is becoming increasingly easy to duplicate documents. The ability to create high quality copies has created a need for technology which can differentiate between original documents and copies of the original.
It is known that watermarks can be used to help differentiate genuine documents from copies. However, the prior art techniques for using digital watermarks to differentiate genuine documents from copies have serious limitations. The present invention is directed to an improved technique for using steganography and digital watermark technology to facilitate differentiating original documents from copies of the original.
The present invention can also be used for various other purposes such as to embed multiple types of information in a single document or to provide watermarks that enable documents to perform special functions.